Ipsilon Networks, Inc., was a

computer networking A computer network is a collection of communicating computers and other devices, such as printers and smart phones. In order to communicate, the computers and devices must be connected by wired media like copper cables, optical fibers, or b ...

company A company, abbreviated as co., is a Legal personality, legal entity representing an association of legal people, whether Natural person, natural, Juridical person, juridical or a mixture of both, with a specific objective. Company members ...

which specialised in IP switching during the 1990s. The first product called the IP Switch ATM 1600 was announced in March 1996 for

US$ The United States dollar (Currency symbol, symbol: Dollar sign, $; ISO 4217, currency code: USD) is the official currency of the United States and International use of the U.S. dollar, several other countries. The Coinage Act of 1792 introdu ...

46,000. Its switch used

Asynchronous Transfer Mode Asynchronous Transfer Mode (ATM) is a telecommunications standard defined by the American National Standards Institute and International Telecommunication Union Telecommunication Standardization Sector (ITU-T, formerly CCITT) for digital trans ...

(ATM) hardware combined with

Internet Protocol The Internet Protocol (IP) is the network layer communications protocol in the Internet protocol suite for relaying datagrams across network boundaries. Its routing function enables internetworking, and essentially establishes the Internet. IP ...

routing. The company had a role in the development of the

Multiprotocol Label Switching Multiprotocol Label Switching (MPLS) is a routing technique in telecommunications networks that directs data from one node to the next based on labels rather than network addresses. Whereas network addresses identify endpoints, the labels iden ...

(MPLS) network protocol. The company published early proposals related to label switching,(known by Cisco Systems as tag switching at the time) but did not manage to achieve the market share hoped for and was purchased for $120 million by

Nokia Nokia Corporation is a Finnish multinational corporation, multinational telecommunications industry, telecommunications, technology company, information technology, and consumer electronics corporation, originally established as a pulp mill in 1 ...

in December 1997. The president at the time was Brian NeSmith, and it was located in

Sunnyvale, California Sunnyvale () is a city located in the Santa Clara Valley in northwestern Santa Clara County, California, United States. Sunnyvale lies along the historic El Camino Real (California), El Camino Real and U.S. Route 101 in California, Highway 1 ...

References

External links

Archive.org's image of Ipsilon's web site
taken several months prior to the acquisition by Nokia. Defunct networking companies Companies disestablished in 1997 Companies based in Sunnyvale, California Defunct computer companies of the United States Defunct computer hardware companies {{Compu-network-stub